Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum trashes Bushwick’s free STD clinic.
Aw, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum doesn’t like our free STD clinic. Honestly, her complaints are a bit nitpicky. No rapid HIV testing after 3pm, not open outside normal business hours, only treating what the patients came in for… this is a free service, people. You can wait a bit for your HIV test, or if it’s that urgent, show up before 3. If you got the clap, you can take off work to get examined.
There were no complaints from Gotbaum about anything else, and in fact her findings are an improvement upon 2006 conditions. We think the clinic is fabulous.
If you, like me, don’t know what the hell a Public Advocate is, click here.
Dresden October 30th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Our public advocate should pick other things to battle.
I could make a list for her. Not a problem.
Dresden October 30th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Like PSA’s in the subway and on buses about noise from iPods and video games – how long is that one going to take?
ricmac01 October 30th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
And our Public Advocate isn’t just one person; she heads an office of DOZENS of people having no responsibility for anything as far as I know. An interesting aside – NYC “subway vigilante” Bernie Goetz ran for this office in 2005 advocating, among other things, that NYC separate from NY State, power naps for city workers and water purification of Central Park lakes. I bet the Public Advocate has a fun “job”!
Dresden October 30th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Shame on them. Morons.
milhouse October 31st, 2008 at 7:06 am
I am consistently surprised at how reactionary the writers and readers of this blog are — are you all Republicans, or what?
Jeremy Sapienza October 31st, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I can’t imagine what part of this you find reactionary. That I think the complaints about the clinic are frivolous? That ricmac thinks the Public Advocate’s office is full of employees who do nothing? Even if he’s wrong, how is that reactionary? Step one: Criticize city authorities. Step two: bomb abortion clinics.
John Dereszewski November 1st, 2008 at 9:09 am
Can’t disagree with you on this at all. Given the current economic situation, the real questions to arise may very well be: “don’t shorten the service hours” or even “don’t close the clinic”. In this context, Gotbaum’s nit picking just seems silly and provides yet another example of the uselessness of her office.
You may be interested to know that, during the 1970′s, the Bushwick Health Center hosted a Tropical Disease Clinic, which served both a large Caribbean clientele as well as a number of gays. I remember being surprised to see some of my gay friends from the Metropolitan Opera standing room line trudging into 1970′s Bushwick to make their appointments.
This clinic was the victim of budget cuts and closed – or officially was “consolidated” – around 1978. And things like that can happen again.